Sparkling colours, subtler shades
by Elesianne
Summary: Netyarë has been fascinated by bright colours all her life, but one day she finds herself chasing something subtler. One-shot about the artistic passion of a Noldorin painter (Curufin's wife) with a dash of other passions.


_**Some keywords for this story:**_ _artistic crisis, vaguely described art, married romance, some fluff, very shortly implied/referenced sex_

 _ **A/N:**_ _I've written about Curufin's wife before (stories called Sparks fly out, Name of Foresight, Burning out) but it's not necessary to have read those fics to read this. All you need to know is that my take on Curufin's mystery wife is a fresco painter called Netyarë, that she's middle-class instead of nobility by birth, and that this fic takes place before Tyelperinquar is born._

 _I'm no artist so I apologise for any inauthenticity in the description of an artist's feelings, techniques etc. This was written for Legendarium Ladies April._

* * *

Netyarë has always been ambitious with her art, aiming for both renown and artistic satisfaction. When she achieves one of these things, she discovers that it means little without the other.

She spent her girlhood learning to paint in one style: in vivid shades creating colourful, realistic landscapes on the walls of high halls in Tirion. By the time she has been married to Curufinwë for a few years she has become famous for this style, and popular enough that she has to turn down commissions almost as often as she can accept them. She is still young enough for this to count as remarkable, and it does satisfy the part of her that has always craved admiration for her art.

Yet gaining renown for something she has been refining, polishing and repeating for years doesn't feel as good as Netyarë had thought it would. While she is given more praise than ever before, she finds herself wanting to protest it.

'Don't you see that this fresco is only very little better than what I did last year – that it is the same thing, only infinitesimally superior in execution?' she wants to demand from those who admire her sparkling colours. 'Are you blind to how repetitive it is, and as such in fact no better than before?'

Netyarë doesn't speak these words aloud, of course. She's always known how to behave in a manner that benefits her, and questioning praise would not do that. She accepts the compliments and smiles radiantly, and no one among the nobles of the Noldor sees the smile for the lie it is but her husband.

After a piece that she is particularly unhappy with is unveiled to great acclaim, Netyarë turns down all commissions and stays home, working for herself for the first time in a long time. Curufinwë is busy with an intensive project of his own but once it is over, he, too, takes a rare day off and joins her in her study after a lunch where she fails to make an appearance.

'Study' isn't really the right name for Netyarë's workroom, for it has few of the features common to most studies. There no bookshelves, and while there is a desk, it is a small one, and crammed into a corner along with the only chair in the room. The only other furniture is a narrow, light table that bears Netyarë's paintbrushes, pigments, plastering tools and other equipment. The walls are covered in a chaos of frescoes: some reach to the ceiling while others, technique studies, are hardly bigger than a palmprint.

At the moment the room is a mess, large sketches littering both the desk and floor while empty buckets lie scattered around the room. Curufinwë makes his way around them to where Netyarë is staring at a mostly blank wall.

'I have kept this wall empty for new ideas', she says when she hears him coming, recognising his footsteps without turning to look. 'But now that I have time, I don't know what to cover it with. I don't want to keep doing the same thing, but everything new is… so new. Not good enough yet, just like my old style isn't good enough anymore.'

'This is your practice space.' Curufinwë picks up a few scrunched-up watercolours to have space to sit on the floor next to her. 'What you paint here doesn't have to be perfect or even good yet. Nothing is at the beginning.'

Netyarë gives him a small smile when she realises that he is echoing her own words back to her, words she spoke one time when he was frustrated with slow progress in the forge.

Soon she looks back at the wall again, though, tracing the smooth white surface with her forefinger. She has images in her head, but they are so elusive that she isn't even certain what they should look like when transferred to reality at the tip of her paintbrush, and no idea at all how she should move that paintbrush, what colours to use, to capture that elusive vision.

'How is this so difficult?' she wonders aloud. 'All my life I've been striving to reproduce what only I see, yet it has never felt like this. Isn't it silly that painting was easier when fewer people saw the results, even though I've always wanted exactly what I have now, a large audience for my art?'

'It's perfectly logical', Curufinwë replies. Netyarë turns to him, frowning, and he asks if he can rebraid her hair that has become a mess during her restless morning.

While he detangles the remnants of her old braid, combs the brown curls with his fingers and ties them into a long plait down her back, Curufinwë explains what he meant.

'You have been so busy these last few years that you have gone straight from commission to commission without pausing in between to develop your art. It is quite natural that those commissions have been for more of the same style for which you first became known, and it is also natural that you have become frustrated with it.'

'Perhaps your impatience is contagious', Netyarë muses teasingly, her mood lifting.

'Please', her husband huffs. 'You are just as impatient and passionate with your art as I am with my craft. Now you need to quite literally give it time. You have very smartly refused all commissions for now, so allow yourself some time to experiment and try new things. I'm sure you'll find the right style soon.'

Netyarë bites her lip while Curufinwë ties off her plait. It hasn't been long enough since the time she was one of the many unknown, unremarkable artists of the Noldor that she wouldn't feel a twinge of panic every time she refuses someone who would pay for her to adorn their house with her art. There have been moments during the last few days when she's considered contacting one of the nobles whose offers she turned down.

She is in a position of privilege now, in more ways than one, but a part of her still struggles to remember it. She wonders if it will ever get easier. It is different for Curufinwë who was born into the privilege.

She is roused from her thoughts by a small paintbrush being pressed into her palm.

'Where did you get this from?' she asks Curufinwë.

'Your hair', he replies drily. 'I believe I've told you before to stop sticking brushes into your hairdos. You have better ornaments for your hair.'

'I don't do it on purpose', she says, and indeed it is one of her absent-minded habits. Then she finds it in herself to tease him – teasing him is after all her favourite activity after painting. 'Darling husband, are you jealous because I decorate my hair something else besides the ornaments you've made for me?'

As their teasing always is, it's half play and half truth. Netyarë is glad, though, when Curufinwë's answer this time is all sincerity.

'A little', he admits, and after pressing a kiss on her cheek rises to his feet. 'I'll leave you to your art. Give it time. I'll keep everything and everyone else away.'

Netyarë doesn't doubt it: when it comes to art and craft, Curufinwë can be generous, and he is nothing if not protective of her when he deems it necessary. The protectiveness chafes her sometimes, but now she is grateful to know she'll be left in peace, alone with her art.

'Thank you', she says, turning towards the maddeningly white surface again. She doesn't hear his footsteps when he leaves the room, all her attention on filling that blank wall.

She doesn't begin with the wall though, of course not. The first thing a fresco painter learns is careful preparation – frescoes are painted on freshly laid plaster, and once the plaster dries the painting is done, any change difficult to make. Experimentation and planning must be done elsewhere: Netyarë does it in sketches, watercolours and even oil paintings.

Netyarë stares at the wall until she no longer sees it white, and then she starts mixing pigments, making new colours. Colours are the thing she will change in her work, colours and contrast. One day she will return to the more abstract style she learned from Nerdanel in the early days of their acquaintance – when she was Nerdanel's protege rather than Curufinwë's wife – but for now she will stay with the realism, only making it less obvious.

She has always painted in brilliant, sparkling colours that cannot fail to catch the eye, but now she wants to try something more difficult. Something that doesn't draw attention to itself but once someone looks at it, they can't look away until their gaze has travelled over every inch and they have become lost in the painting.

The idea of luring people into a world of subtle shades and soft shadows that she will have created is very pleasing.

Netyarë begins with watercolours, since their fluidness seems well suited to the task of creating fine distinctions. At first she only plays with colour, experimenting with how little difference in shade still creates a visible difference. It is more enjoyable than she'd have thought to just try out things without having a very specific outcome she's aiming for.

After two days she switches to oils, a more difficult medium for this task but one she knows she has to conquer before moving on to creating frescoes. It goes better than she expected, and she soon starts creating little scenes instead of just swirls of colour. She finds herself drawn to creating woodland scenes, for the thick foliage and gently dappled shadows of a forest seem well suited to this new style and as such are a good first subject.

At one point she finds out that she has run out of canvases. She moves her supplies and tools to the desk from the narrow table that usually holds them, and paints the tabletop. It is not perfectly smooth but that isn't a problem because this is still practice. Experimentation.

Curufinwë rolls his eyes when he sees the painted table and tells her that she could have just asked a servant to go buy her more canvases.

'I did', she replies, rubbing her back that aches from hours bent over the table. 'But I didn't want to wait until he came back.'

Recognising the faraway look in her eyes, Curufinwë leaves her to the nearly finished table-painting and returns with a tray of food that he quietly leaves on the floor.

Netyarë hears his steps nonetheless. 'Send Wirien here, would you? I'm going to get started on the wall soon, and I could use her help with the plaster.'

'She won't like it, you know', Curufinwë mutters with a crooked smile as he drops a kiss on her hair, then walks away to leave her in peace again.

'She doesn't mind it so much anymore.' Netyarë chuckles, half of her thoughts on the last details of her painting and the other half on her personal attendant.

Curufinwë made her engage a lady's maid when they married. Netyarë had made half-hearted protests at first, feeling a little uncomfortable at the thought of someone else caring for her things and appearance. She had given in soon, though, knowing that having a personal servant was right for her new position – and that it would free time for her art and other things.

Wirien is a smart, lively girl and much more talented with hairstyles and dress designs than Netyarë. She has more surprising talents as well, as her mistress discovered when she taught her to assist her in some of the tasks to do with her art. Wirien had been horrified and indignant when Netyarë first asked her to mix and lay plaster, but after some coaxing and a promise of a raise to her wages if she mastered these additional duties, she agreed to do it.

To Netyarë's surprise, Wirien soon became better at finding the exactly right consistency of plaster and pigments than Netyarë herself. She soon realised it made perfect sense, though – her maid is after all quite skilled with chemicals and making various preparations. Netyarë's hands have never been chapped from the practice of her art since she started using the pungent-smelling but pleasantly cooling hand cream that Wirien makes herself and also sells to other ladies' maids.

Soon Netyarë hears Wirien's light steps coming into the room.

'Plaster or paint?' she asks.

'Just plaster. I will be using new colours so I'll blend the pigments myself.'

They work side by side in silence for a while. When Wirien is finished with her tasks she moves the buckets of prepared plaster next to the wall to set and informs her mistress that she is going draw a bath for her in an hour's time.

Netyarë wonders, not for the first time, if ladies who are ladies from birth and not by marriage let their maids order them around. All of her body aches from many days of painting in uncomfortable positions and very little sleep, though, so she acquiesces, laying the final touches on her table-painting and then seeking the wonderful warmth of the bath.

She closes her eyes and breathes in the fragrant steam. Colours dance behind her eyelids, and she finds herself becoming lost in them as she wants the audience of her art to do.

She's not sure how long it has been when Curufinwë joins her in the bath. Long enough that she is grateful for his body heat, anyway, for the water has cooled.

'Don't fall asleep', he says with a grin in his voice as he gathers her in his arms. 'Not before bed.'

'Mm.' She swats away his hands that have wandered to lightly tickle her belly to keep her awake. 'Since you're here, you can wash my hair. Get out those paint splatters you hate.'

Curufinwë doesn't always respond well to being told what to do, but when he does, Netyarë is _delighted_. Now she almost purrs while he gently washes and rinses her hair and even dries her off.

She never opens her eyes, trusting him to guide her to bed, and she isn't absolutely sure when the colours she still sees change from her imagination to the dream-realm of Lórien. It is a realm of shadows tonight, bluish greens and greenish blues and dim, silvery blacks, more beautiful and captivating than her watercolours and oil paintings, and exactly what she wants to create on the blank wall.

She rises early, soon after the mingling of the lights has begun, slipping quietly out of the bed where Curufinwë still slumbers. She spends that day and the next few days making a careful composition of her planned painting while an underlayer of plaster dries.

Once she has divided her composition into sections she can paint at one time without the plaster drying, she lays a fresh, smooth layer over a small area. Then she finally picks up a paintbrush and starts painting.

The first brushstroke on a large vertical surface is always a rush, almost like that of sudden desire, for while sketching and watercolours are pleasant enough, this is her true medium. Not painting on a piece of paper or canvas, but a wall, a part of something greater; by adorning one part she always makes the greater whole more beautiful. She makes it _hers_ , one brushstroke at a time.

She is now certain enough of her vision that she can enjoy the process of bringing it to life. When the blank wall is no longer blank, Netyarë looks at her work and deems it acceptable. Far, far from perfect, but good enough for a first try.

It's not enough in size, though, just one wall. She needs to fill a room with her first scene in the new style to see if it really works. Her art in its fullest form is all about surrounding the viewer, for to become lost in something you need to have it all around you.

Netyarë summons servants and orders them to empty a guest bedchamber of furniture. She has left the walls of a few such chambers unadorned precisely for this reason, to use them for practice.

She covers the four walls of the small room in a simple woodland scene. She envisioned it already before her dreams of Lórien's garden in the same shades: sometimes dreams influence her art, and sometimes it is the other way around. Sometimes she doesn't know which comes first. It doesn't matter anyway.

The longer she paints in the room that has been stripped completely bare apart from her art, the more she loses herself in it. Fresco painting is slow work, even when the room is small and the subject simple, so she must be taking time to eat and sleep and do those other things which are required to keep making art, but she hardly notices them. She must be interacting with Curufinwë and Wirien, at least, but she can't remember if she says anything to them, and all she sees is the colours she's chasing.

Mainly shades of blue, green, black and brown, but all the other colours too. Abandoning all but a few colours would be a cheap trick; it is more difficult and more interesting to keep them all, but to blend them more closely, to make the contrasts less glaring but still present. She wants to paint a subtle seduction rather than a loud invitation.

She paints soft silver light (for it is a night-time scene); evergreen trees of the north that she saw when Curufinwë took her on one of his family's long journey's (for the shadows of those trees are blue and beautiful); animals of all kinds living their secret lives among the trees (prey and predators alike, small creatures in the undergrowth, a majestic elk raising his crowned head high, owls gliding silently around the treetops).

When she realises she has lost track of time completely in the forest she is creating, Netyarë knows she has succeeded in her goal. Others will be lost too.

It is always an empty feeling, a small loss, when she finishes painting a room. This time as often before, she sits down in the middle of the room and just watches and breathes, coming slowly back to herself. It takes longer than usual this time, which she takes as a good sign.

She falls asleep on the floor before the mix of elation and emptiness has evaporated, dreams of nothing and wakes up to her husband shaking her gently.

'Once again, my love: you have a bed. _We_ have a bed, and I've been wondering if you've forgotten where it is.'

Netyarë opens bleary grey eyes to look into Curufinwë's sharp steel-blue ones. In spite of the acerbic tone of his words, the steel is very soft.

'I finished it', she says. 'This room, as well as creating a new way of making art.'

Curufinwë smiles at her, sharing in her quiet joy and satisfaction, and she smiles back and tells him, 'Don't you dare lecture me on coming to bed. I'm sure you're still ahead on the number of nights spent away from bed because of work.'

'No, you passed me three nights ago. Come now, wife.' He pulls her up, more prepared for how shaky her legs are than she is. She leans into him but refuses to budge from her spot in the middle of the room, gazing at the walls to make sure they are still as good as they were to her tired eyes before she fell asleep.

Curufinwë notices the uncertainty creeping into her. 'It's beautiful and brilliant. Your best work so far', he reassures her and she believes it, for he has never lied to her about things like this. He's not afraid to tell her when something in her frescoes doesn't work.

'I want Tyelko look over these paintings if I decide to replicate them for a client. I'm not absolutely certain about the anatomy of some of the animals –'

'I'm sure he'll be happy to help. We can talk about it more over dinner.' Curufinwë's arms that have twined around Netyarë's waist without her noticing tug her closer to him, then towards the door.

'Dinner? I'm not hungry', she says distractedly, her gaze still sweeping over the painted walls looking for flaws that she knows aren't there.

There is an odd feeling in her stomach. She supposes it is the emptiness of her work being finally over, of having poured her vision out of herself and on to the previously blank walls, but Curufinwë tells her that she hasn't eaten for six days.

'I brought food and wine and tea but for the last week, only the tea disappeared from the trays', he informs her drily.

'Oh.' She leans back on him a little. 'I didn't realise it was so long. I am sorry to have worried you, my love.' For his tone, dry though it had been, also told her that he had watched over her anxiously for the six days. It is not for the first time he has done so, never disturbing or interrupting, for they understand each other in this, sharing more passions than just their desire for each other.

'It's all right', Curufinwë replies. 'As long as you come and eat now. I'll carry you to the dining room if I have to.'

He proves his threat by sweeping her up in his arms, making her laugh. When he carries her out the door, she takes one last long glance at her work over his shoulder and then closes her eyes, the colours still dancing beneath her eyelids as they have done for weeks.

She washes the dirt of many days' work away while Curufinwë prepares a late dinner for her, for it turns out to be midnight and the servants have already gone to bed. Fortunately Curufinwë is a good cook, so it is no hard work for Netyarë to make appreciative noises at the food. A part of her attention is still on her art.

'I think I'll repaint this family dining room in my new style', she mutters between mouthfuls of soup. 'Not a dark forest scene, though. Something with many different hues of golden light, perhaps.'

When the time comes to go to bed, Netyarë doesn't find herself craving sleep in spite of having spent the last week painting almost continuously and the rich food she just ate. The exhilaration of having conquered the challenge of capturing her vision in paint on plaster still keeps her heart beating fast.

So instead of collapsing in exhaustion as Curufinwë seems to expect her to do – as he has done after some long days when his creative fire burnt bright – Netyarë finds herself filled with a new kind of energy and determined to conquer _him_.

It doesn't take much. Just a few touches and a long look aimed at him instead of any painting, and Curufinwë comes as close to her as he can.

'You are sparkling', he tells her before she silences him with her mouth.

The colours kept dancing before her eyes all through the dinner. They try to do so even in bed after but they go unseen now, for all her attention is on her husband.

When sleep finally comes again, it wraps her up in a soft grey haze as tender and firm as Curufinwë's arms around her. She is happy to rest in the greyness, for she is not afraid of losing the new colours for good. Now that she has found and tamed them once, she knows that they will return to her when she calls for them.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _I based Netyarë surviving for days without eating or sleeping properly on Tolkien's mentions of the_ fëa _(spirit) of elves having a lot of control over the_ hröa _(body), allowing them to withstand harsh conditions for a period of time. I imagine that for an artist, this might mean forgetting to take care of themselves during moments of intense creation. And in case you're wondering, no, Curufinwë isn't nearly as gracious about Netyarë fussing about his well-being when their situations are reversed. The detail about Noldorin men cooking is from LaCE._


End file.
